Nathan Phillips problematic slander of the Covington Boys

Let me say in the beginning of this post that I’m not Catholic (I strongly think their view of salvation is wrong) nor did I vote for Trump. Also I am not a racist, being a minority myself nor am I anti-Native American since I married someone who is much more Native American than Elizabeth Warren. I’m writing this post for the sake of truth: There’s been more fake news from the mainstream media against these high school kids from Coivington High School and the more I look into it the more disturbing it gets.

I have also talked about this with a liberal friend on social media and when I showed them what I found I didn’t get a reply. But I have seen him become more cautious in his comments with others as a result of what I shared and his friends pointing out that there’s something to what I was saying. Perhaps this post can help others too.

I found this MSN article that shared the perspective of Nathan Phillips, the Native American drummer in the now infamous photo.

Here’s the first thing that caught my eye:

Phillips, a former Marine, said…

Response: Phillips makes himself out to be a Marine veteran. I’m a Marine veteran and I hate it anytime some leftist use “I’m a Marine…” to justify their false narratives or terrible causes. Multiple media sources have made much about him being a Marine and a veteran of Vietnam. I’m rather cautious with his claim of what he did and what he learned during his time in the military. I think there’s some issues to address about his integrity concerning his service in the military. I think if one is questionable in their integrity over one area of life there is legitimate concern of their integrity over other matters that they talked about.

Vogue has an article titled “Return to Standing Rock” about Nathan Philips and others protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline. Vogue posted this on APRIL 18, 2018 and a web archive of the page can be found here. In that article Phillips is quote as claiming to be a “recon ranger:”

“I have a relative here who said he’d lead the way and scout ahead for us,” Phillips continued, his voice breaking. “You know, I’m from Vietnam times. I’m what they call a recon ranger. That was my role. So I thank you for taking that point position for me.”

There’s some problems with his claim about being a Marine recon ranger. Marines don’t have rangers. The Army has Rangers. Those in the military like to make fun of those wannabe who say they are a “Marine Recon Ranger Special Forces SEAL.” That’s what it sounds like when Phillips say he’s a Marine recon Ranger. Now the Marines do have “Recon Marines” that are the Marines’ elite. But being a Recon Marine makes it less likely that he would have called himself a “recon ranger.’ Sure, Rangers do recon work and Recon Marines do recon. But to call himself a “recon ranger” is like someone saying they were a football player for the “Fighting Irish” (nickname for University of Notre Dame) while they claimed they were at that time playing football for Fighting Illini (University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign). You won’t expect actual football players from any of those universities making that error! Just because both begins with “fighting” and an I letter word for the second word doesn’t mean you can make that confusion. Likewise a real Recon Marine or Ranger won’t make that confusion of what they are just because it begins with “Recon” and both Rangers and Recon has the first letter “R.” So this doesn’t add up.

Phillips says he was removed from his mother’s care at age 5 and raised by a white family until 17, when he joined the Marines.

In the first article I quoted it mentioned he is currently 64. That means he joined the Marines in 1972 as a 17 year old. According to Wikipedia the last Ranger units were deactivated in Vietnam between November 1969 on August 15th, 1972 with the last Ranger combat casualty on June 9th 1972. It seems very unlikely a 17 year old “boot” (Marine speak for “rookie”) would be able to transfer to an elite Army unit just a few weeks being newly minted into the Marine Corps during a time when the Army was waning down their own combat operations and when they were closing down Ranger units. If you think the Marine Corps and Army is willing to deal with the administrative hassle for an inexperience private to join a unit that was being deactivated then I got some beach front property to sell you in Afghanistan.

The article continues:

Phillips, a former Marine, said the incident started as a group of Catholic students from Kentucky were observing the Black Israelites talk, and started to get upset at their speeches. The Catholic group then got bigger and bigger, with more than 100 assembled at one point, he said.

“They witnessed these individuals on their soapbox saying what they had to say,” Phillips said. “They didn’t agree with it and got offended.”

Response: Its terrible the way he painted them as a building mob when the high schoolers were just waiting to be picked up by their bus. By the way there’s nothing wrong with a hundred or more assembled Catholic students assembling. That’s called freedom of Assembly. But what’s strange is that Phillips doesn’t tell you what the speech of the Black Hebrew Israelites were. More on that later.

The article then take a dramatic turn:

Then, things got heated.

“They were in the process of attacking these four black individuals,” Phillip said. “I was there and I was witnessing all of this … As this kept on going on and escalating, it just got to a point where you do something or you walk away, you know? You see something that is wrong and you’re faced with that choice of right or wrong. “

Response: Look at the video the moment Phillips approached the high schoolers:

This unedited video (with the original sound) is indisputable proof that the Native American man approached the Catholic school kids pic.twitter.com/cFi0qRYDg2

Phillips was straight lying when he said that they were in “process of attacking” the four Black Hebrew Israelites. If you don’t know what in the process of attacks look like, go google “Antifa violence.”

If anyone was escalating the situation it was Phillips’ gang and the Black Hebrew Israelities.

But the lies from Phillips continue:

Phillips said some of the members of the Black Hebrew group were also acting up, “saying some harsh things” and that one member spit in the direction of the Catholic students. “So I put myself in between that, between a rock and hard place,” he said.

But then, the crowd of mostly male students turned their anger towards Phillips.

“There was that moment when I realized I’ve put myself between beast and prey,” Phillips said. “These young men were beastly and these old black individuals was their prey, and I stood in between them and so they needed their pounds of flesh and they were looking at me for that.”

Response: Again look at the video. There were distance between the Black Hebrew Israelities and the Catholic high school kids. Nowhere in the video were the kids going to prey on Phillips nor the Black Hebrew Israelities. Note how Phillips lied and described the Black Hebrew Israelities as “old black individuals” who were prey. These guys weren’t old; but they sure were adults. Adults harassing minors. Let that sink in.

The narcissist continues:

The crowd of students, some of whom wore MAGA caps, mocked Native Americans while chanting “Build the Wall” and using derogatory language, he said. The students had a “mob mentality” that “was scary,” Phillips said. “It was ugly, what these kids were involved. It was racism. It was hatred. It was scary.”

For a bunch of young teen age boys, they actually held up admirably. There is no aggression, no fighting back, nothing but a few smirks and a few school cheers. These boys were actually harassed, intimidated and pressured, BY ADULTS, and still they responded with calm, they attempted to descalate the situation.

The real news should have been Black Hebrew Israelites spewing hate against the boys.

But you know why Phillips didn’t spoke out against the Black Hebrew Israelites? Its because he agrees with them and is himself a racist. From the same article:

“The Black Israelites, they were saying some harsh things, but some of it was true, too,” Phillips said.

But the wannabe “hero” doesn’t stop there:

“These young, white American kids who were being taught in their Catholic school, their doctrine, their truth, and when they found out there’s more truth out there than what they’re being taught, they were offended, they were insulted, they were scared, and that’s how they responded. One thing that I was taught in my Marine Corp training is that a scared man will kill you. And that’s what these boys were. They were scared.”

Response: First off there’s the psychobabble about the students being shock and acting out of fear because they didn’t know how to handle their beliefs being questioned. Please, these are high school boys with internet. Secondly and more importantly this is one of those things Phillips said that really bothers me as a Marine combat veteran. Yes a scared enemy is able to kill you. BUT there’s still rules of engagement that needs to be observed such as when the enemy is offering himself up for surrender. More importantly let’s be careful of bring rules of engagement meant for warfare forty years ago back home and applying it to civilians. Don’t lose sight of the picture of what we are talking about: these are American high school boys, minors from a religious school peacefully assembling and waiting for their bus while being harasses for being white. I’m glad Phillips was never a police officer. This kind of mentality that scared boys are to be confronted as if they did something wrong is abusive. Isn’t social justice against the police shooting someone scared running away from the officers? (I agree with them that this is wrong). It’s an abusive mentality that Phillips is displaying for us to publicly read and see, and MSN saw it was fit to print this one-sided and literally one-witness-only account. Again this is the same kind of evil twisted mentality that abusers often use to justify hurting their victims because of something wrong with the victims and it is the same kind of uncritical acceptance of only one side of the story that enables abusers to continue.

Finally we reach a grand finale:

At the same time, he said he’s encouraged by how technology has allowed the message to be spread.

“Many people wouldn’t be hearing what happened just yesterday” if it weren’t for “these technological wonders. … So we have a chance. … I’m just really overwhelmed with the outpouring of support.”

Response: What’s ironic is if there wasn’t the internet we would have to believe the lie of the media and Phillips without any means of independent colloboration. Think about how scary that is.

IP Address: 142.179.120.172.
I’m saving this comment as an example of the kind of obsessive leftist hate, slander, misrepresentation and vileness you possess and spew on this blog for years. Away with you troll.

Smirking when someone drums loudly next to your ear isn’t the worst thing that can happen to Phillips. You must be less mature than that high school kid. Do not forget who is the adult in this situation. Apparently you too are not acting like one neither with your link to farts.

Love how you assume if anyone wear a MAGA hat they must be automatically wrong. You didn’t even read nor watch the post and videos.
What ever you do don’t find out the truth. Anything to hate Trump. It’s truly pathetic.

Yeah, the claim to be a Marine recon ranger caught my eye for the very same reason. Of course, many Marines would LIKE to be Army Rangers LOL. Just kidding, friend. At any rate, the words used seem very contrived to me. I actually spent almost a day on an airplane with a guy from the Black Hebrew Israelite movement on the way back from Israel a couple of years back. Very strange it was. He had legally changed his name to Jeshua and everything. He never even got to leave the airport in Tel Aviv, the Israelis sent him straight back. They don’t put up with that stuff. I tried to share the true Gospel with him, as we had nothing else to talk about. He was not receptive to say the least.

Wow crazy you spent almost a whole day with a Black Hebrew Israelite? They are so extreme. One time when I witnessed to them they told me one day Whites will be their slaves. They got a crowd going since at first I think college kids thought we Christians were harassing African Americans. But the more they spoke the crowd turn against him. I remember in the end even a Muslim guy was defending us and going against them. They were nicer to me because my complexion was darker and they told me that I might have some good blood still in me. Weird…hope you able to be ok working tonight!

He was not unfriendly, just weird. Yep, I am working. Taking a break at the moment. I try to study and write some during the night. If I get all of my work done, a, thynd make sure the residents are okay, they don’t really care if I do that.

Thanks for analyzing this “non-news” story. The news media will latch on to particular events that they know will incite and inflame. If the true facts and true circumstances don’t fit the agenda, they’re left out. There were a couple of “events” here in Rochester in the last month that were branded as “racist” and trumped up by special interest groups and the media, although citing the “incidents” as racist was a very arbitrary force-fit. People have reached a point of hyper-vigilance that has become reverse discrimination. My thought about those Catholic teenagers “confronting” native American Phillips was that they are regrettably being taught salvation by sacramental grace and merit at their high school.

Those kids do need to hear the Gospel that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone (I know you know that, spelling that out for those who don’t know Christ that is reading this post since it has become viral and getting massive hits). Grateful that Jesus is the Good News in a world of bad news and fake news. I still
Can’t believe how bad the Media messed up this one…

It is scary. Leftists are willing to sacrifice kids’ safety for the sake of their false narrative and agenda; but these are the same people who advocate murder of babies as “health care.” It grieves my heart and you probably feel the same…

Excellent Jim—the boys were actually the more mature ones in this mess— at the end their chant was their schools fight song— they fell back on their school, their home and safe place— no hate filled chants — but what saddened about the school was their knee jerk reaction before hearing the full truth was to expel the trouble makers— had they looked further faster they would have seen that their boys were to be commended not condemned for their maturity and innocence.
This issue has me deeply troubled!

It was very troubling. When I saw the videos the first thing on Sunday morning I couldn’t believe the Black Hebrew Israelities were making overt racial speeches and the mainstream media didn’t even cover that, but on some high school kids instead. What a sickening world, a free internet has some good use, especially keeping the free press accountable. You are so right when you said boys were to be commended not condemned for their maturity and innocence. Everyone was so quick to do some online virtue signalling by throwing the boys under the bus. Julie let us call out those who manufacture and propagate fake news and slander!

Reblogged this on quotes and notes and opinions and commented:
We need to have discernment with the medias. We need to stop believing things at face value. Or because certain media have a good reputation.

When I saw this on World News I thought it was pretty rotten what that one kid was doing and his smirking pretty much was convincing me I was right. So, I believed the whole report on it. Glad to have read this article, Jim. God bless you for standing up for the unpopular truth. I do hope the kids will be careful and more discerning as to what causes to stand up for and what causes to back away from. And to use better methods than they did to speak out. They were just minors, they are excusable, but the adults have no excuse for ramping up the bullying they were doing.

I agree with your comment. At first I was also shock at the headlines and I think the media was intentionally doing that to provoke people’s emotion first without all the facts. Thank you Sherry for also reblogging this, may the Lord bless your day and your blogging for the Lord, you know we benefit from them.

Thanks for the mention, Slim. Amen to your whole post, well done. I appreciate the research you did into who Mr. Phillips is and what his claims are. If he is actually proud of being a Marine, which he seems to be because he keeps mentioning it, then he needs to understand that his job is to lead the peace and to protect civilians.

Thank you for your service. We now more about how much of a fraud this Nathan Phillips is. Sooo ashamed of the lying fake media! Cnn msnbc they should not be allowed any air time it’s all a bunch of trash

My husband was a veit nam vet. He joyined at 17. Was there twice. If he were alive he would be 87. Look on IMDb under movie, tough dove. This nathan phillips is an actor paid by Who?(sorry , no caps , tired.) The boy with the mega hat was not looking at him , he was looking past him. Look at boy’s eyes. And are the cathlic learders not defending the boys. The native american at the school, raising the emotions, lives in columbus, not on a reservation? I know missionarys who go to these reserves and it is awful for these natives. This columbus native looks very good and well dressed. Who is paying him? Gossip is alive and well and is not world wide. No matter how much one says they were in error and with no adult defence this child will forever be marked. Christ Jesus said gossip is a sin. We need to pray longer and more often. This child my turn to another god because of thes and where are the Parents. As you can tell, I am hot under the collar. 😦 Rightgeous anger is ok as long I don’t go hit some one with my broom.:))

There is a place for righteous anger. I am horrified at the people in power and the media and celebrities that enable the lies of Nathan Phillips to spread. I’m hoping for some major lawsuits against Mr. Phillips and his Leftists handlers who are behind these smear attacks. It makes me mad too.

I felt the more I looked into it the more slanted it got and it got to a point you have to say it was a down right lie, which it was and cover up of the real racists and wrongdoers (the Black Hebrew Israelities in the scene). I can’t believe the national mainstream media promoted the lies but I see through the internet the public speaking out and the tide is turning and some in the media is owning up to their fake news. Our blogging and our tweeting, that is your blogging and tweeting (and reblogging!) does make a difference! By the way Twitter temporarily suspended our account; my blog is pretty bland and I don’t do anything radical but this one post certainly wasn’t liked by Twitter. Shame on Twitter, the media and Nathan Phillips and all other enablers of slander.

Whoa! Suspended your account? Not sure I understand what they’re trying to accomplish doing that. I see a lot more radical stuff going on twitter from both the far left and far right that they don’t bother with. I think there’s more going on than they are letting on here.

[…] These boys, apparently, were the offspring of the President Trump Syndrome: racism, intolerance, white privilege, and arrogance etc. And all this before anyone bothered to fact-check. They all jumped the gun, assuming the worst. The kids were the villains in the entire drama: not the Black Hebrew Israelites and not the American Indian activist Nathan Phillips. […]

This event shows the disgrace of the mainstream media who don’t fact check. It also shows the bias of big tech companies with Youtube censoring the Navy SEAL that exposed Mr. Phillips. It also shows Snopes also lie. We need citizens like yourself to expose lies and reveal the truth.

I was just looking for this information for some time. After 6 hours of continuous Googleing, at last I got it in your website. I wonder what’s the lack of Google strategy that don’t rank this kind of informative websites in top of the list. Usually the top web sites are full of garbage.